At Gracia Barra you can't spar until you get three stripes on your white belt, which can take a while. I suspect it is a liability issue. They tend to be safety-oriented, which I am fine with. On the other hand, I was rolling in Judo from day one and when I used to do krotty we rolled from day one.

"We often joke -- and we really wish it were a joke -- that you will only encounter two basic problems with your 'self-defense' training.
1) That it doesn't work
2) That it does work"
-Animal MacYoung

At Gracia Barra you can't spar until you get three stripes on your white belt, which can take a while. I suspect it is a liability issue. They tend to be safety-oriented, which I am fine with. On the other hand, I was rolling in Judo from day one and when I used to do krotty we rolled from day one.

Depends on the Gracie Barra, anyways. The one I train at, randori ability is still the determining factor for when you get all three of those stripes.

Three stripes seems entirely too long, even on the accelerated GB ranking system.

At Gracia Barra you can't spar until you get three stripes on your white belt, which can take a while. I suspect it is a liability issue. They tend to be safety-oriented, which I am fine with. On the other hand, I was rolling in Judo from day one and when I used to do krotty we rolled from day one.

At my club at least (an official Gracie Barra franchise school), this is not true. I believe two stripes is the limit we set, during regular classes, for people to start standing in sparring; beginners are asked to start from their knees (not knowing how to fall, and not having mat awareness). I’ve rolled with plenty of day-two no-stripe white belts, though. Of course, we also take care to pair people up so that raw beginners always roll with more experienced people.

(Aside: The minimum time for two stripes would be two months, four months for three.)

As long as you're doing some kind of positional sparring (escape the mount/pass the guard and reset, that kind of thing) I think it's not totally unreasonable. If there's no resistive training of any sort then you're pretty much wasting your time.

I'm the guy at my gym that has to "break in" the noobs when it comes to rolling.

Rolling starts from the first lesson, normal rolls are 6 minutes and the first 3 to 4 minutes we start from position rolling with me giving pointers, the other two to three minutes we do flow rolling. My opponent has to get into mount and stay there for 10 seconds.
After the roll we discuss on the negative points (mostly trying to overcomponsate the lack of technique with strenght), positive points, principals of rolling and I give a compliment.

Then we roll a second time and after that he's let loose in the wild on the condition that for the remainder of that class and the next class he has to roll with blue belts and higher. From the third class he can start also rolling with other white belts.

Originally Posted by Jiujitsu77

You know you are crazy about BJJ/Martial arts when...

Originally Posted by Humanzee

...your books on Kama Sutra and BJJ are interchangeable.

Originally Posted by jk55299 on Keysi Fighting Method

It looks like this is a great fighting method if someone replaces your shampoo with superglue.

At Chris Lisciandro's BJJC where I train, from day one you are doing positional sparring. Chris lets you know when he thinks you are ready to start free training. White belts are not generally allowed to free train in open mat sessions, unless Chris gives you the go ahead. Positional sparring would still be ok. I think his approach works well.

I'm pretty sure the standard is to roll from the very beginning but it's not completely ludacris to imagine a particular instructor wanting students to build a few fundamentals before they start rolling.

Out of the ordinary? Yes.
A sign that something is seriously wrong? Not necessarily.

I don't think this gym should be made out to be PUBLIC ENEMY because they don't let n00bs spar straight away. My first lesson in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was NASty, it felt like they were all GRAVEDIGGAZ, some of them were legit BEASTIE BOYS to me, while remaining cool as an ICE CUBE. It's not like there are codified techniques as of the Shaolin Monks, or the WU-TANG CLAN, there are more than 1200 TECHNIQUES, but the fundamentals, the basics, need to be learnt first. The instructor must B-REAL about the growing sizes of classes and the level of experience because some n00bs just don't know how to control themselves, many of them becoming DIZZEE RASCALs because they use all of their strength and gas themselves out, while being dangerous to others and themselves, thinking they are some sort of tatame SCARFACE, a mat GANG STARR. You don't want a student going to a lawyer after a Dr. DREdged up some injury that could've been avoided.

They first need to learn to be relaxed like they were on a beach with an ICE T and a really good way of teaching that is to get them comfortable with the basic positions. They also need to learn to faLL COOL, Jiu jitsu depends on good breakfalling as well. Once they have the basics, they might experience ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT for a while, but not as much as if they jumped in to a class with experienced players that are NAUGHTY BY NATURE. They need to learn the METHOD, MAN, it's nothing MYSTIKAL.

I don't want to be considered an OUTKAST because I think that, with the popularity of BJJ increasing, there would be many people on THE PHARCYDE of bad fitness, flexibility and skill and they might be turned off by being thrown into what could be seen as the jiu jitsu GETO, BOYS.

Sorry about the BIG PUNs, I am the choSEN DOG to sic 'em when I see amusing spelling.

It's ludicrous, by the way.

GET A RED BELT OR DIE TRYIN'.

Originally Posted by Devil

I think Battlefields and I had a spirited discussion once about who was the biggest narcissist. We both wanted the title but at the end of the day I had to concede defeat. Can't win 'em all.

Um, some of you may not realize it but the point of the thread wasn't to criticize dojos who don't allow noobs to be choked out within five minutes of starting their first session of the jits. It was meant to be 1) an attempt to fool most of you into thinking this was a thread about how Judo is awesome and BJJ is not, only to find out you wasted one minute of your life you will never get back and 2) a discussion about the relative value of the product and why a dojo would say no to $800 up front payment for six months training, which someone actually did indeed answer.

"We often joke -- and we really wish it were a joke -- that you will only encounter two basic problems with your 'self-defense' training.
1) That it doesn't work
2) That it does work"
-Animal MacYoung